Climate Change
The Local Role for Promoting Energy Efficient Homes and Businesses
One of the most cost-effective ways to fight climate change is to make homes and businesses more energy efficient. Yet this is also one of the most difficult goals to achieve. In UC Berkeley and UCLA Law’s 2010 report “Saving Energy,” we found the key barriers to be the highly individualized nature of retrofitting buildings …
Continue reading “The Local Role for Promoting Energy Efficient Homes and Businesses”
CONTINUE READINGGingrich & The Environment
Given Newt Gingrich’s current spurt in the polls, it’s worth taking a bit of a closer look at his environmental views. He favors dismantling EPA, which should make him popular with the tea party. But apparently he has problems in that quarter: The reaction from some conservative commentators was swift and harsh. “Intellectually incoherent,” said …
Continue reading “Gingrich & The Environment”
CONTINUE READINGHow Cities and Counties Can Improve Public Transit
Flashy and expensive new transit projects, such as the Los Angeles subway or San Francisco’s proposed Central Subway, get a lot of media attention. But cities and counties have a lot of discretion to improve their existing public transit systems in sometimes relatively low-cost ways. The benefits, as we discuss in a UCLA / Berkeley …
Continue reading “How Cities and Counties Can Improve Public Transit”
CONTINUE READINGNo (or at least little) net loss of jobs from regulation
We keep hearing the phrase “job-killing regulations” from the Republican side of the aisle, with environmental regulations generally at the top of their lists. Yet there has never been much evidence for the claim that government regulation is systematically bad for employment or the economy. To the contrary, scholars, this blog, think tanks (notably the …
Continue reading “No (or at least little) net loss of jobs from regulation”
CONTINUE READINGLooking Ahead to Durban
Unlike the Copenhagen climate conference which had enormous publicity and great expectations, the Durban conference next month is coming up very quietly. Yet, given the 2012 terminus of the Kyoto Protocol, it’s a very important event. Some degree of progress at Durban is important to keep the UNFCC process alive; otherwise, the action is likely …
Continue reading “Looking Ahead to Durban”
CONTINUE READINGKatrinas Yet to Come
Climate change is expected to increase hurricane damage by $40 billion per year by the end of the century.
CONTINUE READINGEnergy Storage in California by 2020: A New Report From the California Energy Commission
Yesterday, the California Energy Commission’s Public Interest Energy Research (PIER) program released a strategic assessment of energy storage technologies in California by 2020. The report was prepared by a three-campus University of California team, including Berkeley Law, UC Los Angeles, and UC San Diego. Along with co-blogger Steve Weissman and Jessica Intrator (who did the …
CONTINUE READINGAdministration reportedly will put off Keystone XL decision
The Washington Post is reporting that the Obama Administration will study alternative routes for the Keystone XL pipeline, delaying a final decision on the pipeline until after the 2012 elections. There had been a perception that the Administration felt caught between environmentalists and unions on the pipeline issue. Nebraska’s opposition to the current proposed route, …
Continue reading “Administration reportedly will put off Keystone XL decision”
CONTINUE READINGClimate Change in Living Color
Richard Muller’s research group has a video that shows changes in surface temperature over the past two centuries. (He’s the physicist who took an independent look at the climate record; climate skeptics loved him until it turned out he had some inconvenient data.) It’s pretty hard to miss what’s happening: big-time climate change. Here’s the …
Continue reading “Climate Change in Living Color”
CONTINUE READINGAnother edition of good news, bad news
The bad news is about climate change (no surprise). The more we learn, the more daunting the problem appears. Cases in point: A column in the journal Nature (subscription required) provided the short version of a report issued this past spring by the California Council on Science and Technology on what it will take for …
Continue reading “Another edition of good news, bad news”
CONTINUE READING